This kind of graphical analysis is usually done with tools that are designed to do so. I use munin
, but there are several other tools that do similar tasks. They gather the data into a data store from which graphs can be readily generated. However, there are tools that can extract the data into formats that can be graphed.
I would use awk
, perl
, or python
to extract the data to be graphed in tabular format starting with a timestamp. This data can then be converted to graphical format. gnuplot
is one tool that can be used to do the conversion either interactively or to image files.
EDIT: As noted, there are a variety of tools that will report data reported by SAR. Some will store historical data and allow graphing of historical data. For a quick analysis of current status I use top
. However, when I need to review recent past performance i use the storee sar
data. The text format allows me to isolate the critical data quickly by slicing, dicing and comparing statistics.